Here are the thoughts and images of one who aims humbly for that one treasure known as Enlightenment, Moksha, Nirvana, or The Kingdom of Heaven. I share with the reader the little insight and experience I am given on this quest of Love. I will have nothing new to say, but the way I express it will be genuine and honest. If a single phrase or painting come to be helpful to others, this whole mess will be worth the while.
Well met, traveller.

Thursday, August 23, 2012

To discover our attachments to what we
consider negative is comparatively simple. The bad news comes, we
react emotionally, and rather soon we find ourselves attached to it.
Something went wrong at work, or perhaps the house vanished in a
fire. The mind and the emotions start to race in repeating negative
circles. Why did this happen to me? Why now? Will the gods ever give
me a break?

With spiritual practice you get better
at noticing and recognicing the patterns, even in tiny, every-day
events you learn to see how your mind fluctuates and darkens. Since
you obviously gain a lot by not being drawn so quickly and furiously
into a vortex of negative emotions and thought-structures, it becomes
natural to keep up the effort.

However, joy too brings
attachment. On this the Buddha was adamant, and it may seem like
backward thinking. Shouldn't I hold on to, and cherish the little
luck and joy I have in my life? When things finally go my way, of
course I shall revel in it! Everything else would be wasting the good
of life wouldn't it? - to spoil the gifts of God...

Truly,
this is hard to realize, and I suspect experience is the key as
always. When you have that experience of a truly calm mind,
which isn't moved much by the fortunes or misfortunes of life,
you come to discover another kind of joy. Inner stillness
unveils a previously hidden spring, from which true delight and
happines flows out into our being.

I suspect most of us have
had some taste of this water, when momentarily happiness gives us the
infrequent ride for no apparent reason? When there is no obvious
cause for joyfulness but simply being alive? In either case, that
spring is there to be found, and its wealth and freshness is
astonishing. Where the joy we normally experience is dependant on the
situation at hand, and the many jesters of earthly life, this well of
water, discovered through non-attachment, simply can't dry out.

Certainly, we have to settle with the odd glass of it once in
a while, until we complete our spiritual journey, but the taste is so
satisfying and thorough that when a lucky stroke comes to rock us
from our position of equanimity, we firmly realize that this
promising wind will fade too. So we remain silent, watching as it
comes and goes, letting it take us where it must, while internally we
remain seated by the waters of The Lord - laughing, by the
zero-shaped pond of freedom.